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Mike Chamernik’s Question Of The Week (October 14-18)

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Last week, we had another of Mike Chamernik’s “Question of the Week” series, the response was great, and Mike is back again with his next question.

• • • • •

Question of the Week
by Mike Chamernik

After a red-hot 2-0 start, the Saints have lost four straight, with the latest one being a 24-point loss at home to the Buccaneers. When New Orleans is losing, rival fans can relish in calling them the Ain’ts. (Of course, Saints fans themselves originated the term).

What are some of your favorite insult nicknames for players and teams in sports?

• • • • •

Thanks, Mike. Short, sweet and to the point!

As a New Yorker, we’ve got eight teams across the four sports, so I’ve heard plenty of nicknames for the Mets/Yanks, Giants/Jets, Isles/Rangers and Knicks/Nets as well as many of their players (several of which aren’t fit for publication).

Can’t wait to hear the readers’ responses! OK guys…fire away!

 
  
 
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Comments (83)

    Apologies for the crude language, but nothing is funnier than Seattle’s NFC West rivals call them: the Rain City Bitch Pigeons

    Im a Seahawks fan and I find that name hilarious. I also saw some people make Rain City Bitch Pigeon hockey jersey mock ups when the nhl announced the leagues return

    When the Colts abandoned Baltimore for Indy, we started referring to them as the Dolts. Still do.

    Shortly after Chelsea Football Club was purchased by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and they spent massively on some superstars, I heard them referred to as the “Gulagticos.” If you’re unfamiliar, a common name for soccer clubs with lots of stars (specifically Real Madrid) is “Galacticos.”

    Dallas Cowpies
    (formerly) Chokeland Raiders
    L.A. Fakers
    Philly Septuagenarians (Seventy Sexers)
    Los Los Angeles Angeles
    And it’s not an outside insult name, but I think it’s hilarious that OSU calls themselves THE Ohio State without a hint of irony that the only people they are insulting are other Ohio state universities like Bowling Green State, Kent State, Youngstown State, etc. Not quite the flex they think it is.

    Oh, as an OSU alum, believe me, it’s FULL of irony. It is the official name of the school, but we only emphasize the “The” to make fun of the usage.

    tOSU calls themselves THE Ohio State University because it’s still linguistically correct to pronounce the word ‘The’ as ‘Thee’ when the successive word begins with a vowel, and Ohio St thinks they’re special with this distinction. THEE Ohio State University is different from THE Michigan State University, THE Pennsylvania State University, THE Colorado State University, THE Kansas State University, etc etc. There are an inordinate number of states that begin with vowels, however (Oregon State, Oklahoma State, Arizona State to name a few), but I guess Ohio St gets credit for figuring it out an capitalizing on it before any of the other schools could.

    I’m a Steelers fan, so I relish the woes of the Frowns and Bungles. Some fans use “Ratbirds” to reference the Ravens, but Baltimore Browns works for me.

    Quasi-related: in the 80s, the Pirates were in the NL East and had a healthy rivalry with the New York Mets. I had a black button from Wendy’s reading “Muck the Fets” in gold that included the Wendy’s logo. Hard to imagine Wendy’s corporate signing off on a promotional item nodding at the “F”-word!

    In my circle of friends, the Baltimore NFL team is known as, and will forever be known as, the “Ratbirds.” The late, great Pete Franklin used to refer to the Steelers as “Pittspuke.” Another one of our sports-talk guys here used to call David Ortiz “Big Sloppy.”

    When Alex Rodriguez got busted for PEDs, one of the N.Y. tabloids called him “A-Roid.” I love that.

    The Detroit Dead Things (Red Wings)
    Then, not so much being bad teams but more like strings of bad headlines, I remember the Portland Jail Blazers and the Cincinattica Bengals

    One of the Toronto writers (back in the days before Jacques Demers came along) upped that ante by calling them the “Murder City Dead Things”. Not that the Leafs were demonstrably better….

    University of Iowa fan here. We have the ‘Clowns (Iowa State), Goofers (Minnesota), jNW (just Northwestern), and the Poisonous Nut Meats (tOSU)

    As a Jets fan, I always chuckle at “The Jests” (which is fitting, as in, surely, you jest suggesting they won’t suck) and Just End The Season (not really a nickname, but alas).

    “Bungles” for the Bengals is also great.

    In college, our rival was Capital University. Always referred to them as “Crapital”.

    I am a Detroit Red Wings fan, and in the 80’s they were the dead wings. The mich st. vs uofm rivalry with ‘little brother’ is funny also.

    {explicit warning} As a western mich. university alumni, there were shirts made when I was in college that you can’t spell (rearrange letters) without c-m-u.

    Ha! My brother went to Wilfred Laurier University in Waterloo, and one of their rivals (and seemingly everybody’s) was Western University in London. It was a common sight to see students wearing shirts that said WUCK FESTERN in Laurier colours. I borrowed it from my brother and wore it to class in high school and got told to either cover up, change my shirt, or turn it inside out, or else get suspended for the rest of the day.

    Whenever the Bengals are getting blown out at home (by the Steelers), their fans leave early via the Esca-loser. Anyone who’s watched a Bengals game on TV knows exactly what escalator I’m talking about.

    Long time ago, but when I lived in Texas in the 70s-80s Astros fans I knew referred to them as the Lastros, or sometimes Disastros. Obviously neither would apply in recent years.

    Cardinals fans call the Cubs the Flubs. Or Schlubs.

    After they cheated to win their undeserved World Series, some people call Houston the “Asterisks.” I’m one of them.

    My school, USC, is called “University of Spoiled Children” by many rivals. UCLA “The Gutty Little Bruins” was initially a positive said about the 1965-66 football team, but for a long time this has a negative connotation concerning them.

    The novelist Anne Ursu spent a few seasons writing a pseudonymous Twins fan blog called “Bat Girl” and had just the most delicious nicknames for players and opposing teams. My favorite, which I still occasionally use and often think when I read or hear the team’s real actual name, is “Bitch Sox” for the Chicago AL team. The common reverse taunt Twinkies for the Twins lacks punch, since Twins fans often use it both affectionately and derisively for our boys.

    In the NL East, as long as they keep their nickname and iconography, Atlanta will be the Barves to me. And regrettably, it’s no longer nearly as relevant as it once was to speak of the Phaillies. Performance-mocking taunts don’t work when your rival is consistently a better team than yours!

    And of course more than nicknames, there’s the classic mocking motto, “Washington: First in War, First in Peace, Last in the American League.” Switch the obsolete American to National and you still have a too-often relevant taunt for my Nats!

    What do we think of Tottenham…?

    I’m quite used to calling Rangers supporters “Huns”, especially during and since my university days. A recent court case in Glasgow determined that “Hun” is not a slur, which definitely makes me feel better about it.

    Here in Toronto, you might hear people refer to the Craptors, though admittedly it was much more common before the period of success that led to the 2019 championship.

    I welcome any and all insults hurled at the Maple Leafs since a) I rarely watch hockey and b) they deserve it!

    Big Ben Rapistberger or Worthlessburger.

    St Louis Cardinals were the Whiney Birds for a bit but it didn’t stick.

    As a Browns fan, I think the Steelers jab that they play the Browns at least 6 times a year is good. The Original Browns (Ravens), the Other Browns (Bengals) and the New Browns (Browns) is pretty pretty funny.

    That’s good. For those few who don’t know the history, the Browns were named after their coach and co founder Paul Brown, who after being fired by the Browns new owner Art Model, decided to start a new franchise also in Ohio, and founded the Bengals.

    Browns: Pumpkin Heads.
    Buckeyes: the Useless Nuts.
    Pistons: the Pistoffs.

    When the Rams and Raiders left LA, I heard people call them the Scrams and the Traitors.

    Golden State used to have a lackadaisical center named Joe Barry Carroll who got the nickname Joe Barely Cares. And when LeBron first left Cleveland, I called him LeGone.

    Carroll got the nickname from Peter Vecsey, back when sports columnists had power and influence like that

    IONA University: Idiots On North Avenue (the school’s address is 715 North Avenue, New Rochelle).
    Minnesota No Stars.
    Detroit Dead Things.
    Lose-ipeg.

    The Giants had an outfielder in the 1980s named Jeff Leonard, whose nickname was Penitentiary Face. At some point he let it be known that he wanted to be known as Jeffrey, which prompted some writer — Jayson Stark, maybe? — to wonder if his new nickname was Correctional Facility Face.

    One of my favorite soccer chats toward the Pink Cows (New York Red Bulls) go like this:

    Why is Red Bull served in a can?

    – They have no cups.

    I miss those days.

    Growing up a St. Louis Cardinals fan in the ’80s, we for some reason *hated* the Mets – even more so than our traditional disdain for the Cubs. I remember chanting “Mets are Pond Scum!” whenever they visited Busch, and seeing lots of shirts with the same pejorative on them.

    Referring to the Browns, I remember hearing them called the previously mentioned “Pumpkin Heads” as well as Cleveland being “the Mistake on the Lake”.

    Some NBA ones gave me a bit of a laugh
    Julius Randle – Dubious Handles
    Joel Embiid – WebEmbiid (gets hurt a lot
    Kyrie Irving – World B. Flat

    “Street Clothes” for Anthony Davis is good.

    I also enjoyed LeMickey and ADisney, in reference to the Bubble title

    When the Lakers drafted point guard Andre Turner from Memphis State, he (after a short while) became “Andre Turnover”.

    Good stuff, everyone!

    I find it intriguing that sports is the last place where it is acceptable for people to be outright mean to others (within reason). I suppose it is because sports fandom isn’t truly a part of a person’s core identity, and that the athletes themselves are well compensated. There’s still some fun to it. Though I do get salty when my teams/schools get roasted.

    Florida State Crimi-Noles instantly popped into my head.
    Some (not many?) refer to Philly NFL as the Beagles.
    Hockey: Kenny “The Rat” Linseman
    NASCAR: Steve “Start and” Park
    Baseball: Von “541” Hayes

    Oh, and there’s more than a few who referred to the Philadelphia’s Spectrum as the Rec, err… a lower part of the body that sounds kinda like Spectrum.

    After FSU got caught in some kind of illegal-inducements scandal, I think it was Florida coach Steve Spurrier who started calling them Free Shoes University!

    As a Manchester City supporter, our red-clad rivals over in Trafford will always be “The Rags”, and their ground will always be “The Swamp”. The former nickname came from when United were a much poorer club in the early 20th century, and their kit was in such a poor state their fans started to affectionately call them “Rags”. City fans soon appropriated this in a mocking way to wind up the United fans, and it’s still in use almost a hundred years later.

    As a Wisconsin Badger fan, I usually refer to the Minnesota sports teams as the Yellow Sewer Rats.

    In the WIAC (Wisconsin public universities, most in D-III), UW-Oshkosh is “UW-Zero,” Stevens Point is “UW-Pointless,” Eau Claire is “Eww-Claire” and “When in doubt, go to (UW) Stout.”

    The Stout nickname is somewhat in the same vein of what Cornell College (and a couple other smaller Iowa schools) say about Coe College: “If you can’t go to college, go to Coe.” Additionally, Cornell offered spelling lessons for their rival: C-O-E-S-U-X.

    Pittsburgh Squealers
    Shitsburgh Steelers (sorry lol)
    NY Stankees
    NY Yankthese
    Dallas Cowgirls

    If you stream a Saints radio broadcast you’ll hear Bobby Hebert, the Saints ’90s quarterback, refer to the San Francisco football team as the “Farty-Niners” !
    Now he’s a down-home Cajun born and raised, thick accent, but I still think because they beat him so often in the 90s that he does it on purpose!

    As and Orioles fan I heard “wOes” a lot. And love when they play the Stanks (Yankees) and Sux (Red Sox).

    Chris Harris of the Harris Football Podcast would commonly refer to former-Lions/current-Rams QB Matt Stafford as “Stat Padford.”

    I had a friend who would always refer to the KC Chiefs as the “Chefs”.

    My dad’s nickname for the Colorado Avalanche is the “Noveau Nordiques.”

    I always got a kick out of Shaq’s nickname “The Big Cactus” from his Phoenix stint.

    I’ve had to prove to non-baseball fans that there was, in fact, a pitcher named Randy Johnson and that his nickname was, in fact, “The Big Unit”.

    Back when the Red Wings had the Russian 5, Scottie Bowman would sometimes put 4 of them on the ice along with a Canadian whose last name was “Brown”. When this occurred, the play-by-play would call him “Brownov.”

    Sort of related: Some years ago I was watching a Wings game with a few hockey fan friends, and one of them related that a couple of years earlier his nephew had drawn one of those cute kid crayon pictures of the Russian 5. The crude drawings had names written to identify the players, but one of them temporarily stumped everyone: A guy identified only as “Onov.” Who in the world was that?

    Well, of course, in a child’s mind, it was obvious: It was Larry Onov. Naturally! He had heard repeated references to Igor Larianov and drew the logical conclusion.

    We had a good laugh at this. Then a bigger one some hours later, when “Larry” scored a goal. And not just any goal: we were watching game 3 of the 2002 Stanley Cup Finals, and Larry won the game in triple overtime.

    My favorite growing up was the insult to Darryl Strawberry was simply his name. Darrrrrr-rrrrrrrryl. Amused me as a kid that that became an insult.

    And for all you Jim Rome clones out there, I love the Atlanta Fail Clowns.

    Nottingham has 2 football teams: Notts County and Notts Forest.

    Notts Forest fans get quite upset by this as they would like people to use the full Nottingham Forest.

    So a nice easy way for Leicester fans to wind them up.

    A very English insult among the brash US ones!

    In Buffalo just 2 stand out, The Bickering Bills from 1989, were Jim Kelly and the other future Hall of Famers on the team couldn’t get along that year and struggled to a 9-7 record in a bad division. With that said it did bring along the start of the Super Bowl era run for the next 4 seasons.
    As for the Sabres its been the Butter Knives the last 13 seasons.

    Cleveland Clowns
    For much of the post-LeBron era they were the Cleveland Cadaverliers
    The Guardians are occasionally referred to as “Dolan’s Discounts”
    Cincinnati Bungles
    Under John Cooper they were THE Ohio State Suckeyes.
    Bad Cincinnati Reds teams have been called “the Deadlegs” or “Big Dead Machine”
    The one constant in Ohio is referring to the college located in Ann Arbor as “that school up north.”
    As for hockey, there’s the Columbus “Lose Jackets” or “Blow Jackets”

    A lot of the answers above seem forced or local or homemade/internet driven.
    That being said, I do definitely recall hearing “the mistake by the lake” for sure.

    As an alumnus of the University of Arizona, I will always refer to the team from Tempe as the ASWho Scum Devils.

    what a fun question of the week

    the rangers play at what i refer to as ‘madison square garbage’.

    -a devils fan

    When Cesar Cedeno was playing center field for the Astros in the 70s I saw him at Dodger Stadium in a game against the dodgers. Cedeno was on second was coming home on a hit to the outfield and ran over the Dodger catcher. And out of the Astros dug out you hear “Oh my God, what an A$$hole” followed by team accolades.

    I’ve called them the Houston A$$holes ever since.

    U of Illinois is in Champaign-Urbana, which my mom typically refers to as “Shampoo-Banana”.

    In days of old hockey nicknames, weren’t just tacking on “ie” and “y” to a last name, shortened or not. Many were interesting, some were not all that complementary:

    John “Pieface” Mckenzie – later shortened to “Pie”.
    Andre “Red Light” Racicot
    Dave “Cementhead” Semenko
    Ken “The Rat” Linesman – “The Rat”
    Gilles Gratton – Gratoony the Loony
    Mike “Shaky” Walton
    Gary “Suitcase” Smith

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